page_title: Gita Sahgal
hierarchical_section_title: Gita Sahgal
caption_attribution_description: English: Gita Sahgal on Islam's Non-Believers Panel Discussion at the International Conference on Free Expression and Conscience, London, 22-24 July 2017 (#IWant2BFree).
context_page_description: Gita Sahgal, born 1956/1957 in Bombay, India, is a writer and journalist on issues of feminism, fundamentalism, and racism, a documentary films director, and a women's rights and human rights activist.
  She has been a co-founder and active member of women's organisations. She has also been head of Amnesty International's Gender Unit, and has opposed the oppression of women in particular by religious fundamentalists.
  In February 2010 she was suspended by Amnesty as head of its Gender Unit after she was quoted by The Sunday Times criticising Amnesty for its high-profile associations with Moazzam Begg, director of the campaign group Cage, that represents men detained at Guantanamo under extrajudicial conditions. She referred to him as "Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban". Amnesty responded that she was suspended "for not raising these issues internally". Speaking in her support were the writer Salman Rushdie, the journalist Christopher Hitchens and others, who also criticised Amnesty for this affiliation. Begg disputed her claims of his jihadi connections and said that he did not consider anyone a terrorist who had not been convicted of terrorism.
context_section_description: Gita Sahgal (Kashmiri: गीता सहगल (Devanagari), گیتا سہگل (Nastaleeq)), born 1956/1957 (age 63–64) in Bombay, India, is a writer and journalist on issues of feminism, fundamentalism, and racism, a  documentary films director, and a women's rights and human rights activist.
  She has been a co-founder and active member of women's organisations.  She has also been head of Amnesty International's Gender Unit, and has opposed the oppression of women in particular by religious fundamentalists.
  In February 2010 she was suspended by Amnesty as head of its Gender Unit after she was quoted by The Sunday Times criticising Amnesty for its high-profile associations with Moazzam Begg, director of the campaign group Cage (formerly Cageprisoners), that represents men detained at Guantanamo under extrajudicial conditions. She referred to him as "Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban". Amnesty responded that she was suspended "for not raising these issues internally". Speaking in her support were the writer Salman Rushdie, the journalist Christopher Hitchens and others, who also criticised Amnesty for this affiliation. Begg disputed her claims of his jihadi connections and said that he did not consider anyone a terrorist who had not been convicted of terrorism.
  Sahgal left Amnesty International on 9 April 2010.
caption: Sahgal speaks in London in July 2017.
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